"E. E. Doc Smith - The Galaxy Primes" - читать интересную книгу автора (Smith E. E. Doc)

so much younger - that its strongest telepaths were only Fours. The Tellurians became acquainted with, and upon
occasion fought with, various types of man-sized monsters in addition to the three varieties they had seen on Hodell.
Every planet they visited had Arpalones and Arpales. Not by those names, of course. Local names for planets,
guardians, nations, cities, and persons went into the starship's tapes. Every planet they visited was peopled by Homo
Sapiens, capable of interbreeding with the Tellurians and eager to do so - especially with the Tellurian men. Their
strict monogamy was really tested more than once; but it held. Each had been visited repeatedly by starships; but all
Garlock could find out
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about them was that they probably came from some world somewhere that was inhabited by compatible human
beings of Grade Two. He could learn nothing about the faster-than-light drive.
Number Ten was another strange one - the Tellurians were found incompatible.
'Let's go down anyway,' Belle suggested. 'Overcome this unwillingness of ours and find out. What do you think
they've got down there, Clee, that could possibly handle you and me both?'
'I don't think it's a case of "handling" at all. I don't know what it is, but I believe it's fatal. We won't go down.'
'But it doesn't make sense!' Belle protested.
'Not yet, no; but it's a datum. Enough data and we'll be able to formulate a theory.'
'You and your theories! I wish we could get some facts!'
'You can call that a fact. But I want you and Jim to do some math. We know that we're making mighty long jumps.
Assuming that they're at perfect random and of approximately the same length, the probability is greater than one-
half that we're getting farther and farther away from Tellus. Is there a jump number, N, at which the probability is
one-half that we land nearer Tellus instead of farther away? My jump-at-conclu-sions guess is that there isn't - that
the first jump set up a bias.'
'Ouch. That isn't in any of the books,' James said. 'In other words, do we or do we not attain a maximum? You're
making some poor assumptions - among others that space isn't curved and that the dimensions of the universe are
very large compared to the length of our jumps. I'll see if I can put it into shape to feed to Compy. You've always
held that these generators work at random - the rest of those assumptions are based on your theory?'
'Check. I'm not getting anywhere studying my alleged Xeno-logy, so I'm going to work full time on designing a
generator that will steer.'
'You tried it before. So did everybody else.'
'I know it, but I've got a lot more data now. And I'm not promising; just trying. Okay?'
'Sure - I'm in favor of anything that has any chance at all of
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working.'
Jumping went on; and Garlock, instead of going abroad on the planets, stayed aboard the Pleiades and worked.
At Number Forty Three, their reception was of a new kind. They were compatible with the people of this world, but
the Inspector advised them against landing.
'I do not forbid you,' he explained carefully. 'Our humans are about to destroy themselves with fission and fusion
bombs. They send missiles, without warning, against visitors. Thus, the last starship to visit us here disregarded my
warning and sent down a sensing device as usual - Engineers do not land on non-telepathic worlds, you know - and it
was destroyed.'
'You're a Guardian of Humanity,' Garlock said. 'Can't you straighten your people out?'
'Of course not!' The Arpalone was outraged. 'We guard humanity against incompatible and non-humans; but it is not
our business to interfere with humanity if it wishes to destroy itself. That is its privilege and its own business.'
Garlock probed downward. 'No telepathy, not even - not even a Seven. This planet is backward - back to Year One.
And nothing but firecrackers... We're going down.'
'Good!' Belle said. 'This will break the monotony, at least.' And the others agreed.
'You won't object, I take it,' Garlock said to the inspector, 'if we try to straighten them out. We can postpone the
blowup for a few years, at least.'
'No objections, of course. In fact, I can say that we Guardians of Humanity would approve such action.'
Down the Pleiades went, into the air of the nation known as the 'Allied Republican Democracies of the World', and